Dear Ask Life,

I desperately need relationship advice. My boyfriend and I have been together for almost 10 months, and overall, it’s been good. We have our issues—being busy and not taking enough time to be with each other, etc.

I recently received the dreaded “hey girl” text and confronted him about it. He denied everything, saying the girl was jealous and trying to stir up drama. I believed him.

Then he went to a party while I stayed home to finish a paper. A friend sent me a picture of him making out with another girl. There was no way for him to deny it, but he is extremely apologetic, saying he was drunk and did not know what he was doing, that the girl kissed him and he tried to push her away—all the typical excuses.

I really like him. I may even be in love with him, but it is hard to see past all the red flags. Help!

Sincerely,

Suspicious Sally

Dear Suspicious Sally,

Yikes. Your boyfriend sounds like a real winner. Kidding, of course, but it seems like he has a very different definition of exclusivity than you do.

I assume given the titles of “boyfriend” and “girlfriend,” you two are exclusive and monogamous. I would have a conversation with him about those boundaries and clearly explain your expectations.

He messed up—bad. But you seem like you want to forgive him and move on. That is totally fine! In this situation, I would apply the three-strike rule. He currently has one and a half strikes. If he reaches three, it shows a pattern of disrespect for you and your relationship.

His intentions are important in these situations. The “hey girl” text is a blind trust situation—there’s no real way to know what happened if he insists nothing did. But you have photographic evidence of him playing tonsil hockey with another girl.

Yes, he was probably drunk. She was probably drunk. But plenty of people don’t cheat when they’re drunk. At least if he was intoxicated, his canoodling might not have been intentional or malicious. It still happened, though, and you have to decide whether that matters to you.

Trust is the biggest factor in relationships [hello, obvious], and when that trust is broken, it can be hard to gain it back. Sometimes, it is impossible to move forward with a partner knowing they have made out with someone else.

While forgiveness is nice, do not stay with him out of complacency. If you forgive him and he works to rebuild your trust, I wish you both the best. But if there is even the tiniest seed of distrust, the whole relationship could (and most likely will) fall apart. That seed will grow until there is a massive sycamore of doubt.

How do you proceed from here?

My recommendation in these early 20s dating situations is to break up. It will suck for a while, but statistically, there are plenty of people out there who will not give a drunken dental exam to someone else at a party.

Maybe not Carrie Underwood-levels of car vandalism, but a little property destruction might be in order. Kidding—mostly.

If you do care about this guy and he can prove he is not a dirty little cheater, there is no harm in staying with him. But if he does anything like this again, you have to dump him. At that point, it is no longer a one-off, and based on the pattern, you can not trust his drunk actions—or his sober ones.

And if you get another picture or text? Do not hesitate to explore your options at the next party.

Sincerely,

The Life Section